Flueckiger - Everyday Hinduism

1. Chapter 01
2. Chapter 02
3. Chapter 03
4. Chapter 04
5. Chapter 05
6. Chapter 06
7. Chapter 07
8. Chapter 08

Joyce Burkhalter Flueckiger

This edition first published 2015
2015 Joyce Burkhalter Flueckiger

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Cover image: Jamini Roy (18871972), Three Pujarins, tempera on board, 36.5 70.5cm. National Gallery of Modern Art, New Delhi

My first thanks go to the many families and individuals I have worked with and learned from over my many years of ethnographic research in Chhattisgarh, Hyderabad, Tirupati, and Atlanta many of whom have become close friends and family. This book would not have been possible without them.

The approach and topics of this book developed, in part, through teaching a course at Emory University titled Introduction to Religion: Hinduism and Judaism, which I have co-taught many times with Michael Berger. I have learned from Michael new perspectives on Jewish traditions, many creative teaching methods, and ways to engage in comparison. This class has been one motivator in writing this book, and Michaels encouragement and collegiality have been invaluable.

In the first iterations of the class, some Hindu students objected to inclusion of some topics (such as caste or possession) that they had not heard about growing up, about which they had been taught differently, or that their families did not practice. I learned from them clearer ways to frame these topics and, more specifically, to make a distinction between Hindu practices in India and those their families may practice in the United States. I have also learned about a wide range of Hindu practices in the diaspora from these students and their families.

I also thank the Emory University graduate students on whose dissertation committees I have served and from whom I continue to learn (and some of whose ethnographic observations have entered this book). My gratitude extends to my colleagues Amy Allocco, Jenn Ortegren, Harshita Mruthinti Kamath, Kate Zubko, Paul Courtright, and Tara Doyle, who all read select chapters of this book and gave invaluable feedback. V. Narayana Rao read the entire manuscript, and we spent many hours talking about both the topics and the examples that found their way into the book, and many that did not.

Finally, I thank the engaged editors with whom I have worked at Wiley Blackwell Rebecca Harkin and Georgina Coleby. Rebecca first approached me about writing this book for a Wiley series on Everyday Religion, and encouraged me to persevere in the project when other demands threatened to derail it. Georginas periodic encouraging emails also helped to keep the book on track, and she was diligent in following through with many publication details. Giles Flitney was a conscientious copy-editor. It was a joy to work with such enthusiastic and responsive editors.

To read roman transliterations of Indian-language words can be frustrating to those who dont know these languages, particularly given the varieties of transliteration systems that a reader may come across in different publications. I encourage readers to experience these variations as part of the polytheistic imagination of Indian traditions (see Introduction).

Many terms in this book are shared across Indian languages with slightly different pronunciations, and thus transliterations. For example, the name of the god Rama is pronounced with the final a in Sanskrit and Telugu, but in Hindi it is pronounced without the final a, thus Ram. Or the term for vow in Sanskrit is pronounced vrata, but in Hindi, vrat. Other terms have greater variations; for example, the festival of lights may be called Divali or Dipavali (lit., row of lights). I will use the Sanskrit transliteration for proper names (Rama, Ganesha) but will leave off the final a for other nouns (such as prasad instead of prasada, darshan instead of darshana, vrat instead of vrata), since these are the pronunciations closer to the regional spoken languages in which I have worked.

Standard academic transliteration of Indian-language terms often uses diacritics, which I have chosen not to do on the assumption that those who do not know Indian languages will not know the conventions of the diacritics and that those who do know Indian languages will not need diacritics to correctly pronounce the word. Rather, I render transliterations as close as possible to what will result in correct English pronunciation. Thus, I render both and s as sh; shakti (spiritual power) rather than akti. Further, I have indicated aspirated consonants with an h: chaturthi (the fourth day) such as Ganesha Chaturthi rather than rendering the word according to standard academic transliteration of caturthi.

In direct quotations from authors who have used diacritics, the diacritics will not be indicated; so in these cases the reader will notice, for example, spellings of Shiva as Siva, or Vishnu as Visnu. I have indicated Indian-language terms (except for proper nouns) with italics and, for clarity, have chosen to italicize the s that indicates plural in English, although this s is not the way in which Indian languages indicate plural.